Stormwater fee plan previewed to council

SALISBURY – Homes, churches, fire stations, sandwich shops, vacant lots — all would have to pay into nearly $24 million in upgrades needed to bring the city’s patchwork stormwater system into the 21st century, officials said Monday.

Public Works administrators offered the first details on how a proposed stormwater utility would operate at a City Council work session.

To ensure that enough money is raised, all properties would pay regardless of their owners’ tax status, said Michael Moulds, the city’s director of public works. Residential properties would pay $20 a year while all others would pay a fee based on the residential fee and the amount of space devoted to parking lots, roofs and other impervious area.

The plan has encountered little resistance so far. Members of both the Salisbury Area Chamber of Commerce and the Wicomico Environmental Trust were at Monday’s meeting; neither protested.

When the utility was presented at a recent chamber event, “everyone at the meeting thought it was a reasonable fee,” said Robby Sheehan, Salisbury University’s director of government and community relations and the chamber’s lone representative Monday. “As you can see, no one was passionate enough to show up at the meeting today.”

Some council members raised questions about how impervious area fees would be calculated and how property owners would be rewarded for implementing stormwater-related improvements. But the larger question of whether a utility should be created, despite the lack of a specific state or federal mandate, wasn’t refuted.

“I’m comfortable with moving this forward,” Council President Jake Day said.

Councilwoman Terry Cohen said she agreed, but she sought assurances that the money it would raise would truly be needed.

“This is forcing the government to collect money that I think frankly was already set aside for these projects. I’m kind of not into some of the rhetoric on either side,” she said.

Salisbury wasn’t among the nine Maryland counties and one city, Baltimore, that were required to meet a deadline last July to establish a stormwater utility — a mechanism for collecting funds dedicated to addressing flooding and water-quality issues.

Supporters say the fees are needed to help meet U.S. Environmental Protection Agency goals for cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay; detractors refer to it derisively as a “rain tax.”

But the Crossroads of Delmarva is the only place on the Eastern Shore, due to its population density, that is expected to face additional criteria for meeting its federal water permit next year. The city will have to take steps showing it is reducing polluted runoff, Moulds said.

The city also faces pollution targets for cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay, including cuts of one-quarter in nitrogen pollution and nearly 40 percent in phosphorus.

If approved, the utility fee would take effect as early as Jan. 1, 2015. The $20 annual fee isn’t expected to cover the entire $24 million, but the pot of money can be used to lure grants to the city to offset the cost, Moulds said. City officials say they will roll out a public-education campaign early next year and get public feedback on the proposal before taking a final vote.